Revelations
by CharmedFreakz
Summary: After a mission gone wrong Anko is left dying and Kurenai is left mourning. AnkoxKurenai


Well after reading a couple of good AnkoxKurenai fics I decided to try and write a fic about them, hope you enjoy!

**Revelations:** _After a mission gone wrong Anko is left dying and Kurenai is left mourning. (AnkoxKurenai)_

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Rocks crunching beneath her sandals. Rocks and something wet, something that she didn't even want to think about. She could only hear her own footsteps, despite all of the noise behind her. The field was a mess. She surveyed it clinically, not letting herself think about what the words meant. The ground was cracked and marred from the battle that had happened not so long ago. Smoke was rising from, somewhere. Where was everybody? She turned and went in search of somebody, anybody.

Kurenai saw Anko first, and thought she was already dead. She heard a sound leave her mouth that reminded her of a small child about to be eaten up by some kind of nighttime monster. She took a step back and wanted to run; to hell with bravery, this was just too much for one mind to take in. But then she realized that Anko's eyes were open and took baby steps toward the broken body, because it would be one thing, one understandable thing, to turn away from a dead body, to not want to look at the person who had once been her friend. But to run away from somebody who was still breathing and _awake_, who was still Anko despite the blood? She could never forgive herself.

Reaching her friend's side, where Anko lay on her back, Kurenai recoiled. The ground around the purple haired kunochi was cracked, probably from the blow Anko had taken, and it looked as if she were in a crater with multiple rocks resting upon her body. Only Anko's upper body was visible, and her head hung back slightly, resting on the brown dirt. Blood from a gash on her forehead had smeared across her face, a sick mask. Fresh blood dripped onto the ground and tainted the dirt red. Anko's brown eyes seemed to be staring straight at her, but as Kurenai knelt down beside her friend, Anko gave no reaction. For five seconds, she thought that she had been wrong; that Anko was dead after all, and now she would have to sit next to her friend's body until somebody noticed and dragged her away, because there was no way she could get up and walk away on her own and she _couldn't move—_ and the only thing she could think of was that earlier that same day she'd snapped at Anko to go away, and now Anko really had gone away.

And then Anko blinked and Kurenai saw that she was shaking, seeming to fold in on herself, like one does when they stand outside in cold weather without a jacket. Or the way Anko would whenever she got really excited about something, like going to get some dango, her favorite food… Kurenai took a shaky breath and, ignoring everything she'd ever learned about first aid, gently lifted Anko's head and let it rest in her lap. She couldn't just let Anko's head hang back like that. As she adjusted herself on the cold ground, trying to keep Anko from being jostled, she could feel tiny shards of rocks cutting through her skin and settling into her kneecaps. It hurt, but the pain was far away. Fear overwhelmed pain.

"Kurenai," Anko said, and she sounded like she had on the night she'd come over and fallen asleep on Kurenai's bed, before waking up an hour later and yawning her way home. Burnt out. A way Anko wasn't supposed to sound, not ever. "I think I'm okay?"

"Yeah," Kurenai heard herself lie. "You'll be fine, Anko." Couldn't she hear it? That catch in her voice, that fear? Surely Anko would understand the depth of this situation. Looking down into Anko's eyes, though, she learned the truth. Anko was absolutely terrified and if Kurenai told her that everything was going to be okay, it must be true. It was the permission Anko needed to stop being so afraid.

Sure enough, Anko gave her a ghost of a grin. "Good thing." There was a pause, and then she added nonsensically, "That was pretty cool, what I did."

"Yeah." Kurenai said with a slight hitch as she looked at her friend's blood covered face. "Anko." Kurenai, despite herself, was using her sleeve to try and mop up some of the blood from Anko's face, with little success. If she could just keep Anko focused on something, _anything._ It was a hard enough thing to do when she was lucid. As soon as she thought it, Kurenai regretted the words. Why was she always such a bitch, even in this kind of situation? Even though she was panicking, why was she still thinking these kinds of things? "Remember my first kiss?"

Anko's eyes rolled up briefly, before she sighed, "Huh?"

"My first kiss. With Asuma, remember? You made fun of me for a week. _Remember_?"

"Oh…" Anko closed her eyes, opening them after five long seconds. Kurenai forgot about the blood and started running her fingers through Anko's bangs, being careful to avoid the head wound. It was something her own mother used to do whenever she was sick. It always made her feel a little better. "Yeah… Stupid."

"Yeah. That really cracked you up, didn't it?" Oddly, she felt like laughing herself. Just remembering the way Anko had flopped onto her neatly made bed, wrinkling up the blankets and laughing in that way only Anko could.

Anko did laugh then, briefly. It turned into a shallow, shuddering gasp that left Kurenai deeply frightened. "It's cold," she said after a moment. "Kurenai, we'll be okay. Right?"

"Of course we will," Kurenai said through her tears. "Of course we will. Just hang on for another minute, okay? I know it's hard, but just try, okay? For me. Just do this one thing for me and I'll never yell at you again or… or call you stupid… okay?" She was rambling now, not even thinking about what came out of her mouth, just talking. "I'm sorry I've been abusing our friendship lately, Anko. I haven't been good friend to you, have I? But I think… it'll be okay now, if you just hold on. Okay? Anko?"

…_Anko?_

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Did Anko die? What happened before this? What's going on? All your questions will be answered in the next chapter of **Revelations**

Please R&R


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